


Dancing Queen

by tsukiakari



Series: Insomnia [6]
Category: Nancy Drew (Video Games), Nancy Drew – HER Interactive (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-10
Updated: 2013-10-10
Packaged: 2017-12-28 23:55:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/998421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsukiakari/pseuds/tsukiakari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Savannah's next-door neighbor is murdered, she and Wade are drawn into the investigation, and their relationship ends up being cast in a new light.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dancing Queen

In retrospective, he should've expected something to happen right away, in the chinks of time between arrival and departure. Normalcy, so rare as it is for either of them - something multiplied into near nonexistence by the simple fact of their being together.

The night itself stays clear in his mind. He'd fallen asleep on the couch, halfway through browsing another Craigslist page of apartments, and been woken just as quickly by the screaming next door. Van's footsteps had rung out on the stairs, followed by the sirens outside, and the rest of their night had been bathed in scintillating red and blue lights. Sleeping after that had been something as out of reach as every little moment that conspired to wake him again.

Now, in the morning, he sits at the kitchen table and blinks against the weight of exhaustion. The pallid cloudy light streaming through the windows reeks of autumn depression, and the TV's muted murmur in the living room barely reaches his ears. Outside, the white coroner's van is still parked in the driveway next door.

His mind fuzzes at the edges and his eyes drift shut, even through the annoyance of being exhausted after just one sleepless night. It'd been just as bad on Blackrock, wandering through the forests in search of Jessie, leaning against tree trunks and catching weary naps in between flashes of birdsong.

Shaking his head, he pushes himself out of the chair and walks into the living room, the light through the big picture window shocking mild awareness back into his thoughts. Vaguely his head starts to hurt.

Van's sitting on the couch, staring at the TV. She hears his footsteps and turns back, her face dulled by a grim resignation. "Yeah, they're already reporting that it was murder."

The unreality of the situation seems oddly heavy, as much as the weight that had crept over him back in Thornton Hall itself. He folds his arms, hoping to keep himself from falling asleep on his feet, and watches the squinting reporter recite the news. A corner of Van's house peeks out almost cautiously from the left side of the TV.

After a few seconds, the reporter's voice blurs into a wordless drone, and his focus is equally useless for the red banner at the bottom of the screen. Annoyance keeps him awake for a while, but by the time his eyes drift shut for more than a moment, he's only marginally aware of Van pulling him over to sit on the couch.

Somehow he manages to dream, all flashes of the house next door and grim faces mixed up with Van talking to him and running somewhere. The TV volume keeps constant commentary, running as a soundtrack to whatever his mind's eye comes up with, but when he wakes, leaning awkwardly against the right arm of the couch, the sun's barely moved in the sky.

His spine aches when he pushes himself upright again. The TV is still on, running a gaudy talk show, and the colors sting at his eyes even through the sunshine through the windows. He looks away and Van's absence makes itself obvious, for the first time.

Her footsteps sound quietly behind him, just enough to give him warning before she speaks. "Oh, you're awake already?"

He has to swallow hard before he speaks, clearing away the bitter dryness in his mouth. "Never quite been able to sleep on a couch."

"I dunno, you looked pretty comfortable to me." The afternoon glow draws out exhaustion's dark shadows under her eyes as she sits next to him. "Wish I could sleep."

Before his mind can start working overtime and convince him to stay still, he slips an arm around her shoulders. She leans into him willingly, the softness of her body blurring his senses into sleepiness again and pushing his eyes shut. A bird flutters past the window, a quick flash of shadow. Contentment seeps past his weariness and warms the dark behind his eyelids.

Then she jumps awake, mumbling a little, and the moment's broken away. He forces his eyes open again and lets her pull away, for all that the loss of touching her leaves him faintly resigned.

"See?" She muffles a yawn. "I've been up too long to sleep now. Always happens, no matter what I do."

A sudden thought blinks to the front of his mind, granting him a clear imagining of Van's hand in his, climbing the stairs, to her bedroom that he hasn't yet seen. By the time he's stifled the picture, with a force of will rarely used or needed, he's been staring at the window long enough for the sky to hurt his eyes.

The first thing he can grasp at is the news next door, and he holds the thought between himself and the imaginings, like a newspaper between his face and the world. "What about what was on the news? Not like I got to see any of it."

Her face changes, clouds blotting out the sun. "Oh, right..." She pauses, and the rest of her words are flavored with the old bluffing. "Well, it's not like they said anything special. I didn't know too much about the guy living next door, but I guess he was divorced. They're questioning his ex-wife, I think."

Even he can hear the "but" hanging in midair like a scythe, and the thought prickles with nervousness for reasons he can't understand. "But...?"

"But...that scream, last night? It wasn't his ex-wife." She fixes him with the stubborn gaze he'd never quite forgotten. "They showed some picture of her on the news, and I'm sure as anything it wasn't her. Whoever it was I saw running away, she'd been visiting next door for months already."

It takes a moment for her last sentence to sink in. "Wait a minute, you saw someone?"

She nods. The stubbornness in her eyes freezes into a coat of determination, triggering some odd, nostalgically unpleasant feeling that floats somewhere in his chest. It lingers for a long time before he finally recognizes it as the sinking feeling of resignation.

"Van, I hope you're not gonna go looking for this girl, whoever she is." His mind taps him on the shoulder with weary politeness, telling him it's futile even as he speaks. "Just call the police and let them know what you saw."

"Oh, I already did." A tired little smile flashes over her face, amusement shadowed by something else he can't read. "They told me they'd go looking for her, but truth be told, I'm not that sure they will."

"You gonna call that detective kid you sent out to Blackrock?" At this point he'd rather go back to sleep and take Van with him, but the exhaustion drags more on his body than his mind now, playing scattered scraps of music in the back of his mind's ear even as he waits for her to answer him.

This time she laughs. "No, last thing I heard, she was off in Scotland. I'm just gonna keep an eye out, and see what happens."

Listening to the carefully honed edge in her voice aches. He knows to the point of wry pain that she's as self-sufficient as he could ever be, that she suffers chauvinism as kindly as a kick to the back of the knees. But on the other side of the coin, the muddled intensity of his feelings for her are shouting endlessly for him to keep her safe, to tuck her away and let the police handle what they should. His weary brain can't wrap itself around either thought.

"Be careful, Van." The cliche of the phrase grates.

She smiles and leans over to kiss him quickly. "Don't be such a white knight. I'd never exclude you from the party, and I'm not half as spontaneous as I was back in the day. We'll be fine."

Though he can't help smiling back, the worry in him pulls him back to kiss her, a little longer this time.

**Author's Note:**

> In case anyone's wondering, the title isn't based on ABBA's song, but rather on a song by Korean girl group Crayon Pop. It's a much different listen and I recommend it!


End file.
